Cemetary Offers Discount to Veterans
Lower Sackville graveyard owner offers $500 fee instead of $1,500 for military, police relatives
Discount burials for military and police veterans are being offered at a Lower Sackville graveyard, the cemetery’s owner announced Friday.
The move was made to help financially strapped families of veterans, said Bill Mont, who owns the 9.7-hectare Pleasant Hill Cemetery outside Halifax.
“We’re going to encompass all of the services, including the RCMP and the police force,” he said. “We’re quite prepared to talk to any of the groups, any which way that we can help them out.”
He said the cost of a final goodbye at his cemetery will be chopped to $500 for a burial plot from the regular $1,500 fee.
The 83-year-old Mont, a well-known flea market king, said he’s an army veteran. He said his offer of markdowns for needy veterans is in response to difficulties many families are having with funeral and burial expenses.
Mont said his cemetery has plenty of space. The site is a non-denominational graveyard with lots allowing for one burial and four cremations.
“There’s a good (two hectares) not even touched,” Mont told a news conference in Fall River. “So we can accommodate a fair amount, and I’m hoping this (offer) is going to (motivate) other cemeteries across this country, maybe in each province, (to) do the same.”
The Last Post Fund, a non-profit agency that administers funerals and burials for Veterans Affairs Canada, serves veterans who meet financial and service-related criteria.
Last year, The Canadian Press reported the program has rejected 20,147 applications — about two-thirds of all received — since 2006.
The Royal Canadian Legion in January promoted a national letter-writing campaign targeting Ottawa over the funeral and burial program. The legion has about 330,000 members in Canada.
Thursday’s federal budget included a reference to “enhancing” Ottawa’s program covering death-related costs. The Harper government is planning to boost the reimbursement rate to $7,376 from $3,600.
The government “proposes $65 million over two years to enhance the funeral and burial program by simplifying the program for veterans’ estates,” budget material says.
NDP MP Peter Stoffer said the financial commitment is a start to correcting a long-standing problem looming over aging, low-income military veterans. But he said the budget information is short on details.
Earlier this year, Veterans Affairs issued a statement to CBC News about the Last Post Fund and the dilemma facing families seeking a dignified funeral and burial for relatives. “Canada’s funeral and burial program is one of the most comprehensive among allied nations and is the only program to cover full burial costs,” the statement said.
Ottawa's policy tops similar financial assistance programs in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. Of these, the UK offers the most help -- $3,498 for war veterans' families -- according to Veterans Affairs.
Stoffer publicly thanked Mont for his “extremely generous offer.”
The member of Parliament, who represents Sackville-Eastern Shore and is his party’s critic for veterans’ affairs, said the cost issue must be put to bed as soon as possible.
Time is running out, Stoffer said.
“When we all go to bed tonight, we will lose another 120 (Second World War) and Korean (War) veterans and some modern-day veterans due to the aging process,” he said.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/1090049-cemetery-offers-discounts-for...
